African Americans & the End of Slavery in Massachusetts"This website features 117 items from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. This group of unique manuscripts and rare published materials includes handwritten documents and letters (Phillis Wheatley and members of the Hartford family), the earliest antislavery pamphlet published in Massachusetts (The Selling of Joseph, printed in 1700), petitions of enslaved people requesting freedom, documents certifying the freedom of specific individuals, materials relating to two people involved in landmark legal cases that helped to bring an end to slavery in Massachusetts (Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker), warrants and depositions for freedom seekers, bills of sale and account books documenting enslavement transactions, and a series of letters written in 1795 in which some notable men share their perspective on the history and end of slavery in Massachusetts."